A: With new juice bars popping up around the country, and many people stocking their kitchens with a home juicer, there's no doubt juicing is the latest health craze. Freshly squeezed and freshly bottled juices have become a popular way to get the health benefits of fruits and vegetables by dieters looking to "cleanse" their way to weight loss. But do juicing's health claims hold up?

Proponents claim that juicing is a good way to get a bounty of fruits and vegetables and that it's easier to absorb nutrients from juice than whole foods. That's only partly true. While you can, literally, squeeze out many of the vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals found in fruits and vegetables by juicing them, you also lose the fiber, a component of fruits and vegetables that adds to satiety and helps improve heart and digestive health.

Since you have to use a far larger quantity of fruits and vegetables to make a glass of juice than you typically would eat in a sitting, you will get higher doses of micronutrients and phytochemicals, but you'll also get more sugar and calories, without the fiber that helps to slow absorption of that sugar. You can minimize the amount of sugar you get by drinking primarily vegetable juice -- kale, cucumber and celery are low-sugar vegetables that are delicious options for juicing -- or to stick to a 4-ounce serving of fruit juice.

As far as absorption goes, one study of fresh mangos and papayas versus juice found that people absorbed the carotenoids -- one of the major nutrients in mangos and papayas -- well from both juice and fresh fruit. Another study found little difference between the absorption of carotenoids from fresh carrots versus carrot juice.

You should get at least 2.5 cups of vegetables and 2 cups of fruit a day on a 2,000-calorie diet. Juice can be one way to up your intake, but whole fruits and vegetables should still be a part of your daily diet.